"Crack!"
A crisp snap of breaking bone rang out.
The index and middle fingers of his right hand bent backward at grotesque angles. He had actually broken them himself by applying too much force.
"Aaaah!" the ninja screamed. His hand seals failed, his chakra backfired, and he spat blood onto his mask.
"Whoosh!"
Seeing this, a ninja beside him threw a kunai without hesitation, aiming for Haschwalth's heart.
But his foot suddenly slipped-a pebble that had rolled in from somewhere, polished slick by the rain, happened to lie exactly where he planted his foot to push off.
The kunai left his hand, veered off course, and plunged straight into the thigh of another teammate preparing to cast a jutsu.
"Shhk!"
"Bastard! Why did you throw that at me?!"
"I didn't mean to! My foot slipped-ah!"
A third ninja tried to escape with the Substitution Technique. He completed his hand seals, and chakra surged-
The substitution log appeared.
But not in the safe spot he had intended.
Instead, it appeared directly beneath him, in a patch of earth that had become a swampy mire after the explosive tags had "misfired" and the rain had soaked it soft.
"Plop!"
The substitution log sank into the mud, while he himself... remained standing where he was.
"How could... the Substitution Technique failed?!"
"Watch out! His genjutsu! It has to be genjutsu!"
"No! It's not genjutsu! It's bad luck! We've been cursed with bad luck!"
Panic began to spread.
Haschwalth simply stood there quietly, his sword hand steady as a rock. He had not even attacked.
He merely pointed his sword tip at the remaining Iwagakure ninja, one after another.
Every person he pointed at suffered some inconceivable "misfortune":
One tried to charge, only to trip over his own ninja tool pouch and fall flat